García Lorca, Federico
The works of García Lorca, internationally recognized as Spain's most prominent lyric poet and dramatist of the twentieth century, are filled with thinly veiled homosexual motifs and themes.

Musical Theater
There has always been homosexual involvement in American musical theatre and a homosexual sensibility even in straight musicals, and recently the Broadway musical has welcomed openly homosexual themes and situations.

Michelangelo Buonarroti
Best known for his genius in art and architecture, Michelangelo was also an accomplished author of homoerotic poetry.

African-American Literature: Gay Male
The African-American gay male literary tradition consists of a substantial body of texts and includes some of the most gifted writers of the twentieth century.

Camp
Combining elements of incongruity, theatricality, and exaggeration, camp is a form of humor that helps homosexuals cope with a hostile environment.

Hughes, Langston
Langston Hughes, whose literary legacy is enormous and varied, was closeted, but homosexuality was an important influence on his literary imagination, and many of his poems may be read as gay texts.

Baldwin, James Arthur
James Baldwin, a pioneering figure in twentieth-century literature, wrote sustained and articulate challenges to American racism and mandatory heterosexuality.

Wilde, Oscar
Oscar Wilde is important both as an accomplished writer and as a symbolic figure who exemplified a way of being homosexual at a pivotal moment in the emergence of gay consciousness.

Congratulations to Andrew J. McDonald on His Nomination to the Connecticut Supreme Court

Posted by: Claude J. Summers on 12/27/12Last updated on: 12/27/12

Andrew J. Mcdonald.

Congratulations to Andrew J. McDonald, who on December 27, 2012 was nominated by Governor Daniel Malloy to the Connecticut Supreme Court. A former co-chairman of the General Assembly's Judiciary Committee before he left the legislature to become the Governor's General Counsel, McDonald will become the first openly gay member of the Connecticut Supreme Court.

As reported in the Connecticut Mirror, Malloy described McDonald as possessing "an exceptional ability to understand and analyze, research and evaluate legal issues." Malloy said those skills will make McDonald a "great jurist."

McDonald was co-chairman of the General Assembly's Judiciary Committee in 2005, when the legislature passed a civil unions law that gave many of the same rights as marriage to same-sex couples. In 2008, the state Supreme Court mandated marriage equality in Connecticut.

While a member of the legislature, McDonald was a supporter of marriage equality, transgender rights, and the abolition of the death penalty.

In announcing McDonald's nomination, Malloy spoke of the Supreme Court's "heroic" decision in 2008 that legalized same-sex marriage, and noted that he performed McDonald's wedding the following year to his longtime partner Charles Gray.

At the announcement, McDonald thanked Malloy, his friends, colleagues and former law partners who attended the press conference, and Gray, whom he described as "my 'friend,' my partner and my companion." He added, "Some three years ago I was so honored, governor, that you helped settle the name game by performing our wedding and allowing me to finally and officially call Charles my husband."

McDonald is a graduate of Cornell University and of the University of Connecticut School of Law. He is expected to be confirmed easily.

In the video below, from 2007, then-Senator McDonald speaks of his work in the Judiciary Committee.